Manage To Change

Who’s the Customer?

At a recent parent teacher conference with my son’s Science teacher, I happened to notice that the best overall grade in the class was a 76.  There were another two passing grades and every other student was failing!

Out of 16 students 3 (20%) were passing.

I asked the teacher about class performance. 

“This is a really bad group of kids.  I’m not doing anything differently than I have for the past 28 years and I’ve never had this happen before.  I know it’s not me.”

You haven’t changed your approach for 28 years and you consider yourself blameless? 

Let’s contrast this with Jeremiah Owyang’s moderation of a Web 2.0 Expo panel.

Jeremiah monitored Twitter while moderating the panel.  As audience comments appeared saying the session was getting boring, Jeremiah shifted the focus of the speakers and addressed the comments real time.

Instead of using Twitter, he might have interpreted body language or facial expressions to figure out that a change in direction was needed (less direct, but still effective).

The point: He got customer feedback and adjusted!

If your customers are leaving, if they’re bored with your product, or if 80% of your class is failing, isn’t it time to adjust your course?

Web 2.0 Expo: Community Building: Good, Bad, and Ugly

Today is the first day of the O’Reilly Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco.

The first session I attended this morning was Community Building: Good, Bad, and Ugly. It was moderated by Jeremiah Owyang from Forrester Research and included Dawn Foster (Community Manager for Jive Software), Kellie Parker (Community Manager for PC World and Mac World), and Bob Duffy (Community Strategist for Intel).

Here are some of my rough notes (sorry - don't have the time to pretty them up and form coherent sentences!).

Using social networks as a vehicle for customer service: Customer service was traditionally one on one. A person (usually a company) answered a customer’s question or issue.

Community allows a customer to put their question to a group and get answers from other customers, not just the company. It also enables broader conversation about the issue.

All of the panelists agreed that when it comes to building your own community or joining other communities the answer is to do both. Engage your audience where they are - even if it isn’t on your website!

On the differences between marketing and community building and management...

Community management is less formal. Managers and other company participants engage with customers as people.

This isn’t traditional push marketing. It’s bidirectional. Often companies position traditional assets AT the conversation rather than becoming part of the conversation.

Characteristics of a Community Managers ...

Must be passionate both about the technology and the dialogue.

They should be the product experts not necessarily marketing staff.

They need to be amazing networkers. If they don’t know the answers they need to know how to get them. This also helps bridge the gap between the online and offline communities.

They should be diplomatic, often having to handle difficult customers and participants.

Perhaps the most personally enlightening comment for me was viewing the role of the community manager as both the advocate of the community to the company and the advocate of the company to the community.

That seems to be it in a nutshell!

Working with Publishers 101

Lately I’ve found myself talking to companies that want to work with publishers, but they’re having a difficult time getting any business.

In almost every conversation the same issue surfaces.

The vendor wants to make the publisher understand their unique value proposition.

However, the vendor’s general knowledge of publishing is often lacking and their specific understanding of the publisher they’re “targeting” is virtually non-existent.

The vendor wants to be treated like a partner, but they don’t act like one!

All publishers may create and manage content, deliver it via multiple channels, and engage in marketing activities, but they are all different.

A publisher’s ability to innovate around content is critical, yet many publishers are having a hard time evolving. They know it too!

Many would like to explore vendor partnerships, but few vendors take the steps needed to gain the publisher’s trust and respect.

If you want to work with a publisher, start by remembering these points:

You don’t know everything.

You need to listen.

It’s good that you know your product’s strengths, but you must respect the publisher’s strengths too.

Be confident and offer your expertise, but understand that there is no plug and play.

Your expertise needs to be combined with their experience and reconfigured to arrive at the right solution.

Times are changing. Some publishers will make it and some won’t.

None of them will engage you along the way unless you take the time to understand their business and culture.

(Reposted from June 2007)

Making Excuses or Doing the Job?

Every “explanation” we offer for why the thing that was supposed to happen didn’t happen is an excuse.

They’re not all bad. Sometimes they offer insights that benefit the recipient.

Mostly, though, they don’t.

This occurred to me as I wrote my first post after 10 days of silence. It was the longest I had ever gone without writing.

Did you need to hear that I was busy or traveling or sick or uninspired or just plain lazy?

No, you didn’t.

If I had written an explanation, it would have been because I needed to justify my absence. It would have been all about me.

So let’s make a commitment to each other.

The next time we miss a date, annoy a customer, say the wrong thing, or do anything else that we feel needs justification, let’s not.

Let’s just fix the problem, in the eyes of those impacted, and move on.

Sticky Situations: Partnership Gone South

You meet someone who is highly recommended by a colleague.

As you get to know each other it seems as though you share the same philosophies about collaboration, clients, and conducting business.

Your businesses are a perfect complement so you enter into a partnership and jointly work with your first client.

Early in the relationship your partner starts to get territorial. It’s “their way or the highway.”

You try to identify how you might be contributing to the issue. You try to adapt your style. It doesn’t help.

You discuss the issue with your partner, but they don’t see it. In fact, they think these discussions are a testament to your fine working relationship - you two can talk about the tough issues and resolve them. But, they’re not getting resolved, just avoided or ignored.

And, they’re getting worse!

It’s starting to impact the client. They’re not just disregarding you. They’ve started acting this way toward the client.

Now what do you do?

Other Sticky Situations

Sparing Feelings or Being Cruel?

Eavesdropping?

Managing Your Boss

To Call or Not to Call

Is There Anybody Out There?

Remember my experiment with Jott last week?

Well someone from Jott came by the blog to offer their support. Good for them!

It’s relatively easy for someone to find instances of their company, product, or brand on the web and see what people are saying about them – yet, few companies do.

Or if they do, few comment or participate in conversations.

Harvard Business Review did, very well I might add!

Dell did.

Volvo didn’t.

United Airlines didn’t.

HP didn’t - not even once.

Starbucks didn’t.

LinkedIn didn’t.

Twitter, Microsoft, Second Life, Apple, YouTube, American Airlines, and many others, all didn’t.

I’ve read many detailed accounts of others’ brand experiences, and also rarely see a comment from the brand owner.

Reports can be positive or negative and there are still no responses.

I’m not sure why this is.

The popular perception is that they either don’t know people are discussing them or they don’t care. No one actually knows because they aren’t saying anything!

Do you look for mentions of your product on the web?

What do you do when you find one?

Photo credit & an interesting blog.

A Night to Remember

(Courtesy of US Airways)

All Philadelphia bound planes are delayed.

In my infinite wisdom, I get a seat on the 6:30 flight (trading in my seat on the 7:30 flight).

We boarded at 8:00 (7:30 flight wasn’t close to boarding yet – yeah me!)

We wait.

5 minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes…

Captain comes on and says there’s no tug to push us from the gate.

We wait.

5 minutes, 10 minutes …

Finally, we start moving. We taxi for a few minutes and then we stop.

We wait.

5 minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes…

Captain comes on and says we have a load balancing issue.

There’s too much weight in the back of the plane and we need to go back to the gate for the baggage handlers to fix it.

Can we all just sit in the front?

We go back to the gate.

We wait.

5 minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes…

Captain explains that it’s a new plane. Most planes have their luggage loaded first in the back and then in the front. This plane requires the opposite. They didn’t quite have the process down.

We don’t care.

But we still have to wait.

We’re ready to go. We taxi back out to the runway.

We wait.

5 minutes, 10 minutes…

We take off.

No one brings by even a glass of water!  In fact, I'm not even sure there are flight attendants on this plane.

We land in Philadelphia (total time in the air - 55 minutes).

We wait.

5 minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes…

They finally allow us to cross the active runway.

We taxi to our gate.

Wait for it… huh? No bell. Why can’t I get up?

We wait.

5 minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes…

Captain says there’s no one there to park us.

Can we use those inflatable slides? Someone have a ladder?

We don’t care.

But we still have to wait.

5 minutes, 10 minutes …

I’m off the plane. Yeah!! It’s over!

The parking garage is locked.

Starbucks: The Decline

It used to be that every so often Starbucks would give you your drink for free. No fanfare. No formal offer. Just, “Thanks, it’s on us today.”

I felt appreciated when they handed me that coffee.

Recently, the baristas were giving this coupon to everyone.

Looks great – right?

Now read the back.

This is why Starbucks isn’t what it used to be.

It went from handing you a free drink with no strings attached, to printing up a coupon that offers a free drink if you come in on a weekend, if that weekend is in September, and if you buy another drink that cost more first.

Customer appreciation just isn’t what it used to be!

In Good Hands, Stuff & Nonsense

In Good Hands

A car accident is probably one of the worst experiences you can have. First there’s the worry, then the clean up.

Volvo (and seatbelts) handled the worry.

Allstate handled the clean up.

They have been great. They got my car, paid off my loan, sent me a check, handled all the medical bills directly, AND my insurance hasn’t gone up.

How could I ask for anything more?

Stuff

I have three email accounts that I access through Outlook and I wanted to add one more today.

Simple – right?

Wrong. After 6 hours and a bit of “compromising on my requirements”, I have a passable solution.

I know many of you are “solopreneurs”. What do you do for IT support?

Nonsense

My husband sent this picture to me in 2001. It helps with frustrating days.

How to tell if your ass is too small:

Marketing to Me

Professional marketers need to define some new demographics.

Age, for example, doesn’t seem to be an accurate indicator of someone’s desire to get their news from the Internet, to buy new gadgets, or to research medical conditions on the web.

For many products and services geographic location is irrelevant (other than to determine tax rates).

Gender, again, seems to be of limited use in predicting behavior as is the fact that someone is a parent or the number and age of their children.

I don’t cook. I don’t read glamour magazines. My favorite color is black. I have been known use online publishing, Twitter, and Facebook. I’m over 40.

I could be your biggest fan if you’d just give me a chance. I am just as likely to talk about your product’s virtues as I am its deficiencies and I am very well networked.

So PLEASE find a way to market to me that doesn’t insult my intelligence or assume I’m someone I’m not.